Items

ITEMS
The S w e d i s h P i o n e e r H i s t o r i c a l S o c i e t y inaugurated a new program of
" P i o n e e r T o u r s " with a two-day outing over the weekend of 16-17 Sep­tember,
tracing the footsteps of some of the earliest Swedish settlers in
the Midwest. A Continental Trailways bus carrying 46 persons, led by
Wesley Westerberg, SPHS director of development, left North Park Col­lege
in Chicago at 8:00 A.M. on Saturday and headed first for Bishop Hill,
Erik Jansson's 1846 Utopian colony, where the group ate lunch and was
given a tour by curator Ron Nelson. The next stop was Galesburg, where
the party visited Carl Sandburg's birthplace and spent the night at the
Sheraton-Galesburg. On Sunday, the group attended a church service,
conducted partly in Swedish by Dr. Conrad Bergendoff, in the historic
Jenny Lind Chapel in Andover, the oldest Swedish Lutheran church in
the Midwest, built in 1850. It then proceeded to Augustana College in
Rock Island, where it lunched and was shown the campus, including the
Swedish archives of the Denkmann Library, by Vice-President Glen Bro¬
lander. The last stop was the John Deere Administration Center and Mu­seum
in Moline, the last major work of the Finnish architect, Eero Saari¬
nen, where the group was guided by John Norton before returning to
Chicago that evening. The local cicerones are all active members of the
Society. The total cost of the excursion was $55.00 per person. It was
judged to be a great success by all concerned and two persons came from
Minnesota and three from California to take part. Further "Pioneer Tours"
to historical Scandinavian localities are being planned as a regular activ­ity
available to members and-friends of the Society.
$ $ &
N e l s M . H o k a n s o n , retired businessman and a leading amateur historian
of Swedish America, died at the age of 93 on 19 July 1978, in Pomona,
California. He is best remembered for his Swedish I m m i g r a n t s i n L i n c o l n ' s
T i m e (New York: Harper Bros., 1942), to be reissued this year in re­print
by the Arno Press in New York as part of its Scandinavians in
America series, edited by Franklin D. Scott. Mr. Hokanson was also author
of several articles, some of which appeared in the QUARTERLY. His life story
was recounted by Professor Scott in the July 1978 issue of the QUARTERLY
("The Saga of Nels M. Hokanson—Immigrant and Immigrant Historian");
Mr. Hokanson had the satisfaction of seeing this article in print and of
distributing offprints of it to his friends a few days before his death. The
great project of his later years was the establishment of a park at "Swede
Hollow" in St. Paul, Minnesota, as also reported on by Professor Scott
in the same issue of the QUARTERLY.
$ e o
S h e r m a n E . J o h n s o n of Strasburg, Virginia, retired deputy administrator
of the Economic Research Service, U . S. Department of Agriculture, died on
28 April 1978, before the appearance of his article, " A Minnesota Immi-
64
grant at Age Seventy," in the October 1978 issue of the QUARTERLY. A a
earlier article, " 'Wood-John': A Swedish Pioneer in Minnesota," had
come out in the October 1977 issue. His autobiography, From t h e S t . C r o i x
t o t h e P o t o m o c , including an account of his childhood in Scandia, Minne­sota,
was published in 1974 by Big Sky Books, Montana State University,
Boseman. Mr. Johnson is survived by his wife, Evelyn.
$ # $
Robert O. A n d e r s o n , chairman of the board and executive director of
the Atlantic Richfield Co. in Los Angeles was selected as "Swedish Amer­ican
of the Year" by the Swedish lodges of the Vasa Order of America.
Mr. Anderson has distinguished himself on the boards of the Lovelace
Foundation for Medical Research in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Inter­national
Institute for Environmental Research in London, the Universities
of Chicago and Denver, the California Institute for Technology, the Carne­gie
Institute in Washington, and the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Re­search
in Colorado. The award was made with traditional ceremony on
"Swedish-American Day" at Skansen in Stockholm, on 6 August 1978.
® $ $
The new S w e d i s h C o u n c i l of S t . L o u i s , which is growing rapidly, held
a festive banquet in commemoration of the two-hundredth anniversary of
the death of the great Swedish naturalist, Carl Linnaeus. The event was
held at the Missouri Botanical Garden, site of the Linnaean House, the
oldest operating greenhouse in the United States west of the Mississippi,
constructed in 1881-82, which is shortly scheduled for restoration. Featured
speaker at the banquet was Tore Högstedt, Swedish consul general in
Chicago. Persons in the greater St. Louis area interested in joining the
Swedish Council may contact its treasurer, Eavis Rosenquist, 57 Grae¬
ser Acres, Creve Coeur, Missouri 63141.
# * $
The C a r v e r C o u n t y ( M i n n e s o t a ) H i s t o r i c a l S o c i e t y honored the early
Swedish pioneer, A n d r e w P e t e r s o n , whose farm near Waconia has been
added to the National Register of Historic Places, with a "Harvest Festival"
in Waconia on 23 September 1978. Andrew Peterson, born in Östergöt­land
in 1817, emigrated to the United States in 1849. He is best remem­bered
for the diary which he kept from 1854 to his death in 1898, com­prising
some 30,000 manuscript pages, which is preserved by the Minnesota
Historical Society in St. Paul and which provided Vilhelm Moberg with
invaluable background for his emigrant novels. (See Roger McKnight,
"Andrew Peterson's Journals: An Analysis," in the July 1977 number
of this QUARTERLY. )
$ sie $
The newsletter of the Bishop H i l l H e r i t a g e A s s o c i a t i o n for July 1978
featured the many handicrafts presently being carried on in and around
Bishop Hill and the fine crafted articles now available for sale in the his­toric
community.
65
F e s t i v i t i e s held in S w e d e n with a S w e d i s h - A m e r i c a n t h e m e during the
summer of 1978 included, in addition to "Swedish-American Day" at Skan­sen
in Stockholm on (see above) 6 August and the traditional "Minne­sota
Day" at the Emigrant Institute in Växjö on 13 August, a "Sweden-
America Day" at Kalmar Castle on 18 June, an "Emigrants' Day" at Troll­hättan
on 22 July, and a "Swedish-American Commemoration Day" in
Jönköping on 26 August.
* $ $
The Swedish C o m m i t t e e of the S w e d i s h P i o n e e r H i s t o r i c a l S o c i e t y to­gether
with the E m i g r a n t R e g i s t e r in K a r l s t a d is planning a c h a r t e r f l i g h t
from Gothenburg to Minneapolis, between 15 June and 6 July 1979. The
fare is set provisionally at SKr. 1,950: - . Further information may be ob­tained
from: Emigrantregistret, Box 331, 651 05 Karlstad (Tel. 054-1592 69).
9 * *
The Canadian E t h n i c S t u d i e s A s s o c i a t i o n will hold its Biennial Conf¬
erence on the theme, "Ethnicity, Power, and Politics in Canada," on 11-
13 October 1979, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Inquiries may be sent
to: Jorgen Dahlie, Program Chairman, 1979 CESA Conference, Depart­ment
of Educational Foundations, University of British Columbia, Van­couver,
B. C. V6T 1W5, Canada.
» » »
C o r r e c t i o n . The immigration study tour which Lektor Harald Runblom
of the Department of History, Uppsala University, was to undertake with
a group of Swedish students in the fall of 1977, as announced in the April
1978 issue (144), was cancelled and did not take place.
a * $
SWEDISH COUNCIL,
Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, professor of chemistry at the University of Cali­fornia
at Berkeley, was elected president of the Swedish Council of Amer­ica
on 18 October, succeeding Nils Y. Wessell, president of the Sloan
Foundation.
Dr. Seaborg, co-winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1951, served
as chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley during 1958-61
and as chairman of the U . S. Atomic Energy Commission during 1961-71.
The Swedish Council meeting 18 October was held at North Park College
in Chicago, with the college and the Swedish Pioneer Historical Society
(a founding member of the council) as co-hosts.
Glen A. Brolander, vice president for financial affairs of Augustana
College, Rock Island, and SPHS first vice president, was elected to the
council board at the meeting, as was Leroy A. Johnson, North Park vice
president for planned giving.
» 0 9
A SPECIAL THANKS
During the past year, a number of Sustaining members of the Society
increased their support by becoming Life Members, Benefactors (mem­bers
who contribute $100 or more) or Donors ($50 or more), through spe-
66
cial gifts of $5 to $30, and through becoming Sponsors of the Founders'
Day Dinner on October 14.
We are grateful for their generous support and wish to thank them and
to recognize them through the QUARTERLY. These special friends of the
society are:
L i f e : Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Norris, Minneapolis, Minn.
B e n e f a c t o r s : Hugo A. Anderson, Chicago, 111.; Wesley M. Westerberg,
Evanston, 111.
D o n o r s : Mr. and Mrs. Carl Ahlstrand, Chicago, 111.; Ernest Albertson,
Kenmare, N . D.; Dr. and Mrs. Philip F. Eckman, Duluth, Minn.; Clara E.
Erickson, Park Ridge, 111.; Robert L . Larson, Wheeling, W. Va.; Emory
Lindquist, Wichita, Kan.; Mrs. Ellen V. Meyer, Chicago, 111.; Mr. and Mrs.
Harold E. Nelson, Golden, Colo.; Ray Olson, Kingsburg, Calif.; Mrs. Hjalmar
Pearson, Delavan, Wis.; Grant G. Peterson, Athens, Ga.; Mrs. Walfrid H.
Peterson, Minneapolis, Minn.; Mrs. Roberta Anderson Smith, Kenosha,
Wis.; Harold R. Stroberg, Washington, D. C ; Carl E. Swenson, Rockford,
111.; Mariann Tiblin, Minneapolis, Minn.; Eric G. Wermcrantz, Valpa­raiso,
Ind.; Stig G. Wiren, Kenosha, Wis.
Special Gifts: Mrs. A. Marie O'Boyle, Ft. Myers, Fla.; Mr. and Mrs. Oliver
Reese, Wisconsin Dells, Wis.; B. Kenneth Sanden, New Caanan, Conn.; Mr.
and Mrs. Alvin Seaberg, Highland Park, 111.; Mrs. Elmer Thybony, New
Port Richey, Fla. (in memory of her husband); Mrs. Mary L . Wertsch,
Delavan, 111.
D i n n e r S p o n s o r s : Dr. and Mrs. Joseph C. Danielson, Chicago, 111.; Luella
Hallberg, Geneva, 111.; Julia K. Nordquist (Mrs. Claus V.), Wauwatosa,
Wis.; the Hon. Gösta Oldenburg, New York, N. Y.; Franklin D. Scott, Clare­mont,
Calif.; Mr. and Mrs. Paul A. Varg, East Lansing, Mich.; Wesley M.
Westerberg, Evanston, 111.
These friends represent 15 states from coast to coast and from North
to South. In addition, a number of others who were Regular members
have become Sustaining members during the past year in response to a
special appeal.
As a thirtieth anniversary gift, the Swedish Committee of the SPHS
has presented the Society archives with a copy of Harald Runblom and
Hans Norman, eds., F r o m S w e d e n t o A m e r i c a : A H i s t o r y of t h e M i g r a t i on
(Uppsala and Minneapolis, 1976).
We thank you all.
ERIC R. LUND
President
67

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ITEMS
The S w e d i s h P i o n e e r H i s t o r i c a l S o c i e t y inaugurated a new program of
" P i o n e e r T o u r s " with a two-day outing over the weekend of 16-17 Sep­tember,
tracing the footsteps of some of the earliest Swedish settlers in
the Midwest. A Continental Trailways bus carrying 46 persons, led by
Wesley Westerberg, SPHS director of development, left North Park Col­lege
in Chicago at 8:00 A.M. on Saturday and headed first for Bishop Hill,
Erik Jansson's 1846 Utopian colony, where the group ate lunch and was
given a tour by curator Ron Nelson. The next stop was Galesburg, where
the party visited Carl Sandburg's birthplace and spent the night at the
Sheraton-Galesburg. On Sunday, the group attended a church service,
conducted partly in Swedish by Dr. Conrad Bergendoff, in the historic
Jenny Lind Chapel in Andover, the oldest Swedish Lutheran church in
the Midwest, built in 1850. It then proceeded to Augustana College in
Rock Island, where it lunched and was shown the campus, including the
Swedish archives of the Denkmann Library, by Vice-President Glen Bro¬
lander. The last stop was the John Deere Administration Center and Mu­seum
in Moline, the last major work of the Finnish architect, Eero Saari¬
nen, where the group was guided by John Norton before returning to
Chicago that evening. The local cicerones are all active members of the
Society. The total cost of the excursion was $55.00 per person. It was
judged to be a great success by all concerned and two persons came from
Minnesota and three from California to take part. Further "Pioneer Tours"
to historical Scandinavian localities are being planned as a regular activ­ity
available to members and-friends of the Society.
$ $ &
N e l s M . H o k a n s o n , retired businessman and a leading amateur historian
of Swedish America, died at the age of 93 on 19 July 1978, in Pomona,
California. He is best remembered for his Swedish I m m i g r a n t s i n L i n c o l n ' s
T i m e (New York: Harper Bros., 1942), to be reissued this year in re­print
by the Arno Press in New York as part of its Scandinavians in
America series, edited by Franklin D. Scott. Mr. Hokanson was also author
of several articles, some of which appeared in the QUARTERLY. His life story
was recounted by Professor Scott in the July 1978 issue of the QUARTERLY
("The Saga of Nels M. Hokanson—Immigrant and Immigrant Historian");
Mr. Hokanson had the satisfaction of seeing this article in print and of
distributing offprints of it to his friends a few days before his death. The
great project of his later years was the establishment of a park at "Swede
Hollow" in St. Paul, Minnesota, as also reported on by Professor Scott
in the same issue of the QUARTERLY.
$ e o
S h e r m a n E . J o h n s o n of Strasburg, Virginia, retired deputy administrator
of the Economic Research Service, U . S. Department of Agriculture, died on
28 April 1978, before the appearance of his article, " A Minnesota Immi-
64
grant at Age Seventy," in the October 1978 issue of the QUARTERLY. A a
earlier article, " 'Wood-John': A Swedish Pioneer in Minnesota," had
come out in the October 1977 issue. His autobiography, From t h e S t . C r o i x
t o t h e P o t o m o c , including an account of his childhood in Scandia, Minne­sota,
was published in 1974 by Big Sky Books, Montana State University,
Boseman. Mr. Johnson is survived by his wife, Evelyn.
$ # $
Robert O. A n d e r s o n , chairman of the board and executive director of
the Atlantic Richfield Co. in Los Angeles was selected as "Swedish Amer­ican
of the Year" by the Swedish lodges of the Vasa Order of America.
Mr. Anderson has distinguished himself on the boards of the Lovelace
Foundation for Medical Research in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Inter­national
Institute for Environmental Research in London, the Universities
of Chicago and Denver, the California Institute for Technology, the Carne­gie
Institute in Washington, and the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Re­search
in Colorado. The award was made with traditional ceremony on
"Swedish-American Day" at Skansen in Stockholm, on 6 August 1978.
® $ $
The new S w e d i s h C o u n c i l of S t . L o u i s , which is growing rapidly, held
a festive banquet in commemoration of the two-hundredth anniversary of
the death of the great Swedish naturalist, Carl Linnaeus. The event was
held at the Missouri Botanical Garden, site of the Linnaean House, the
oldest operating greenhouse in the United States west of the Mississippi,
constructed in 1881-82, which is shortly scheduled for restoration. Featured
speaker at the banquet was Tore Högstedt, Swedish consul general in
Chicago. Persons in the greater St. Louis area interested in joining the
Swedish Council may contact its treasurer, Eavis Rosenquist, 57 Grae¬
ser Acres, Creve Coeur, Missouri 63141.
# * $
The C a r v e r C o u n t y ( M i n n e s o t a ) H i s t o r i c a l S o c i e t y honored the early
Swedish pioneer, A n d r e w P e t e r s o n , whose farm near Waconia has been
added to the National Register of Historic Places, with a "Harvest Festival"
in Waconia on 23 September 1978. Andrew Peterson, born in Östergöt­land
in 1817, emigrated to the United States in 1849. He is best remem­bered
for the diary which he kept from 1854 to his death in 1898, com­prising
some 30,000 manuscript pages, which is preserved by the Minnesota
Historical Society in St. Paul and which provided Vilhelm Moberg with
invaluable background for his emigrant novels. (See Roger McKnight,
"Andrew Peterson's Journals: An Analysis," in the July 1977 number
of this QUARTERLY. )
$ sie $
The newsletter of the Bishop H i l l H e r i t a g e A s s o c i a t i o n for July 1978
featured the many handicrafts presently being carried on in and around
Bishop Hill and the fine crafted articles now available for sale in the his­toric
community.
65
F e s t i v i t i e s held in S w e d e n with a S w e d i s h - A m e r i c a n t h e m e during the
summer of 1978 included, in addition to "Swedish-American Day" at Skan­sen
in Stockholm on (see above) 6 August and the traditional "Minne­sota
Day" at the Emigrant Institute in Växjö on 13 August, a "Sweden-
America Day" at Kalmar Castle on 18 June, an "Emigrants' Day" at Troll­hättan
on 22 July, and a "Swedish-American Commemoration Day" in
Jönköping on 26 August.
* $ $
The Swedish C o m m i t t e e of the S w e d i s h P i o n e e r H i s t o r i c a l S o c i e t y to­gether
with the E m i g r a n t R e g i s t e r in K a r l s t a d is planning a c h a r t e r f l i g h t
from Gothenburg to Minneapolis, between 15 June and 6 July 1979. The
fare is set provisionally at SKr. 1,950: - . Further information may be ob­tained
from: Emigrantregistret, Box 331, 651 05 Karlstad (Tel. 054-1592 69).
9 * *
The Canadian E t h n i c S t u d i e s A s s o c i a t i o n will hold its Biennial Conf¬
erence on the theme, "Ethnicity, Power, and Politics in Canada," on 11-
13 October 1979, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Inquiries may be sent
to: Jorgen Dahlie, Program Chairman, 1979 CESA Conference, Depart­ment
of Educational Foundations, University of British Columbia, Van­couver,
B. C. V6T 1W5, Canada.
» » »
C o r r e c t i o n . The immigration study tour which Lektor Harald Runblom
of the Department of History, Uppsala University, was to undertake with
a group of Swedish students in the fall of 1977, as announced in the April
1978 issue (144), was cancelled and did not take place.
a * $
SWEDISH COUNCIL,
Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, professor of chemistry at the University of Cali­fornia
at Berkeley, was elected president of the Swedish Council of Amer­ica
on 18 October, succeeding Nils Y. Wessell, president of the Sloan
Foundation.
Dr. Seaborg, co-winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1951, served
as chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley during 1958-61
and as chairman of the U . S. Atomic Energy Commission during 1961-71.
The Swedish Council meeting 18 October was held at North Park College
in Chicago, with the college and the Swedish Pioneer Historical Society
(a founding member of the council) as co-hosts.
Glen A. Brolander, vice president for financial affairs of Augustana
College, Rock Island, and SPHS first vice president, was elected to the
council board at the meeting, as was Leroy A. Johnson, North Park vice
president for planned giving.
» 0 9
A SPECIAL THANKS
During the past year, a number of Sustaining members of the Society
increased their support by becoming Life Members, Benefactors (mem­bers
who contribute $100 or more) or Donors ($50 or more), through spe-
66
cial gifts of $5 to $30, and through becoming Sponsors of the Founders'
Day Dinner on October 14.
We are grateful for their generous support and wish to thank them and
to recognize them through the QUARTERLY. These special friends of the
society are:
L i f e : Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Norris, Minneapolis, Minn.
B e n e f a c t o r s : Hugo A. Anderson, Chicago, 111.; Wesley M. Westerberg,
Evanston, 111.
D o n o r s : Mr. and Mrs. Carl Ahlstrand, Chicago, 111.; Ernest Albertson,
Kenmare, N . D.; Dr. and Mrs. Philip F. Eckman, Duluth, Minn.; Clara E.
Erickson, Park Ridge, 111.; Robert L . Larson, Wheeling, W. Va.; Emory
Lindquist, Wichita, Kan.; Mrs. Ellen V. Meyer, Chicago, 111.; Mr. and Mrs.
Harold E. Nelson, Golden, Colo.; Ray Olson, Kingsburg, Calif.; Mrs. Hjalmar
Pearson, Delavan, Wis.; Grant G. Peterson, Athens, Ga.; Mrs. Walfrid H.
Peterson, Minneapolis, Minn.; Mrs. Roberta Anderson Smith, Kenosha,
Wis.; Harold R. Stroberg, Washington, D. C ; Carl E. Swenson, Rockford,
111.; Mariann Tiblin, Minneapolis, Minn.; Eric G. Wermcrantz, Valpa­raiso,
Ind.; Stig G. Wiren, Kenosha, Wis.
Special Gifts: Mrs. A. Marie O'Boyle, Ft. Myers, Fla.; Mr. and Mrs. Oliver
Reese, Wisconsin Dells, Wis.; B. Kenneth Sanden, New Caanan, Conn.; Mr.
and Mrs. Alvin Seaberg, Highland Park, 111.; Mrs. Elmer Thybony, New
Port Richey, Fla. (in memory of her husband); Mrs. Mary L . Wertsch,
Delavan, 111.
D i n n e r S p o n s o r s : Dr. and Mrs. Joseph C. Danielson, Chicago, 111.; Luella
Hallberg, Geneva, 111.; Julia K. Nordquist (Mrs. Claus V.), Wauwatosa,
Wis.; the Hon. Gösta Oldenburg, New York, N. Y.; Franklin D. Scott, Clare­mont,
Calif.; Mr. and Mrs. Paul A. Varg, East Lansing, Mich.; Wesley M.
Westerberg, Evanston, 111.
These friends represent 15 states from coast to coast and from North
to South. In addition, a number of others who were Regular members
have become Sustaining members during the past year in response to a
special appeal.
As a thirtieth anniversary gift, the Swedish Committee of the SPHS
has presented the Society archives with a copy of Harald Runblom and
Hans Norman, eds., F r o m S w e d e n t o A m e r i c a : A H i s t o r y of t h e M i g r a t i on
(Uppsala and Minneapolis, 1976).
We thank you all.
ERIC R. LUND
President
67